Dhammavīr Bharatī

July 1989. There was no hope of survival. Three or four heart attacks, one after another. One was so severe that pulse stopped, breath stopped, heartbeat stopped. The doctors declared that life was over. But Dr. Borges did not give up hope. He administered nine hundred volts of electric shocks. A terrible experiment. But he said that if this were a dead body, there would be no pain. But if even a single particle of life remained anywhere, the heart could revive. Life returned, but sixty percent of the heart was permanently destroyed in this experiment. Only forty percent remained. And even that had three blockages. An open-heart surgery was necessary, but the surgeon hesitated. Only forty percent of the heart was functional. If it didn’t revive after the operation, then the decision was made to consult other specialists. Then, after a few days, they would consider surgery. Until then, he was told to go home and rest quietly.

However, in this state of semi-death ${ }^{2}$, I was brought back home. My determination is that I should not be kept in the bedroom, but in my own room full of books. That is where I was placed. Walking, talking, reading were forbidden. For the whole day, I would just lie there, staring at the window on the left, watching the fluttering leaves of the guava tree swaying in the breeze, and inside the room, books piled from the floor to the ceiling, shelves crammed with thousands of books.

As a child, I used to read fairy tales where it was said that if a king’s life was not in his body, it remained in a parrot. Similarly, it seemed to me that my life had already left this body, and that life was now residing in these thousands of books that had slowly accumulated in my possession over the past forty to fifty years.

How they accumulated, how the collection began—I will tell that story later. First, it is necessary to explain how the habit of reading and collecting books awakened in me. This is a story from childhood. At that time, the Arya Samaj reform movement was at its peak. My father was the president of the Arya Samaj in Rani Mandi, and my mother had established the Ideal Girls School for women’s education.

My father had a good government job. He earned very little when Burma Road was being built. But before my birth, influenced by Gandhi Ji’s call, he gave up his government job. We were going through severe ${ }^{1}$ economic hardships, yet regular magazines like ‘Aryamitra Weekly’, ‘Vedodam’, ‘Saraswati’, ‘Grhini’, and two children’s magazines—‘Balasakha’ and ‘Chamcham’—arrived regularly at home. These contained stories of princesses, princes, demons, and beautiful royal maidens, along with illustrations. I became addicted to reading. I always had to read. Even while eating, I kept the magazines beside my plate and read them. Besides my own two magazines, I also tried to read ‘Saraswati’ and ‘Aryamitra’. There were books at home too—Upanishads and their Hindi translations, ‘Satyarth Prakash’. I didn’t fully understand the chapters in ‘Satyarth Prakash’ that were full of debates and discussions, but reading them was enjoyable. My favorite book was a biography of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, written in an interesting ${ }^{2}$ style, illustrated with many pictures. It depicted the extraordinary ${ }^{4}$ courage $^{3}$ of the contemporary heretics.

1. Related to money and currency 2. Entertaining 3. Showy, deceitful 4. That cannot be suppressed

What amazing personalities they were! So many thrilling events in their lives deeply influenced me. Seeing a mouse being offered as food to God, I began to believe that idols are not God; leaving home and running away; wandering among sages in all temples, forests, caves, and Himalayan peaks, searching everywhere for what God is and what truth is—rejecting all values that are anti-social, anti-human, traditions, and finally forgiving those who had defeated me and giving them support. All this thrilled my young mind ${ }^{2}$ greatly. When I got tired of this, I would reread the stories I had already read in ‘Balasakha’ and ‘Chamcham’. My mother stressed school studies. She was worried that the boy wasn’t reading school books. How would he pass! What if he ran away from home like a sage! My father always said that studies would help in life, so read. I wasn’t sent to school; instead, a tutor was hired at home to begin education. My father didn’t want me, at a young age, to fall into bad company, start fights, or adopt bad manners. So my name was registered, and when I had completed my studies up to class two at home, I was enrolled. By the third class, I was fully absorbed. That evening, my father grabbed my hand and took me for a walk. At a shop in Lokenath, fresh pomegranate sherbet was served in earthen pots, and he placed his hand on my head and said, “Promise me that you will also read school books with the same attention, and please make my mother happy.” Thanks to his blessing or my own stubborn hard work, I got good marks in the third and fourth classes, and in the fifth, I came first. My mother hugged me, tears in her eyes, while my father just smiled and didn’t say much. Since my marks in English were the highest, I received two English books as a prize. One book showed two small children searching for dollhouses in gardens and corners, and in the process, they learned about various bird species, their calls, and habits. The other book was ‘Trusty the Rag’, which had stories about water vessels—how many types there are, which ones carry goods, where they come from,[^25]

1. Tradition 2. Flourishing

where they are taken, what the life of sailors is like, how different ${ }^{1}$ islands are found, where whirlpools occur, and where sharks live.

These two books opened a new world for me—the sky filled with birds and the sea filled with mysteries. My father cleared out a cupboard in the almirah and made space for my two books, saying, “From today, this cupboard is your own books. This is your own library.”

From here began that child’s library. The child grew into a youth, went to school, then college, then university, earned a doctorate, taught at university, and after leaving teaching, came from Allahabad to Bombay, where he began editing. In the same proportion, he expanded his own library.

But you might ask: if the habit of reading books is fine, why did the urge to collect them arise? The reason is also a childhood experience. Allahabad is one of India’s most prominent ${ }^{2}$ centers of education. From the Public Library established by the East India Company to the Bharati Bhawan established by Maharaja Madan Mohan Malviya, the university library, and many college libraries exist—almost one separate library in every neighborhood. There are high courts, so there are private libraries of lawyers, professors. I never thought I would have my own library, not even in dreams. But in my own neighborhood, there was a library—‘Hari Bhawan’. When school holidays came, I would go there and stay. My father had already passed away, and there was no money to pay the electricity bill, so I would just sit there and read books brought out from the library. Those days, Hindi was being flooded with excellent translations of world literature, especially novels. I found great joy in reading those translated novels. There were many novels in my small ‘Hari Bhawan’. There, I was introduced to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s ‘Durgeshnandini’, ‘Kapalkundala’, and ‘Anandamath’, Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’, Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, Gorky’s ‘Mother’, Alexander Kuprin’s ‘The Coachmen’s Hut’, and the most entertaining Sarvak’s ‘The Strange Hero’ (i.e., Don Quixote). What a fascinating experience it was to meet all the characters of the world’s stories through Hindi! As soon as the library opened, I would go there, and when Shukla Ji, the librarian, said, “Boy, get up, the library is closing,” I would feel great reluctance ${ }^{1}$ to leave. On the day when a novel was left unfinished, I would feel a pang in my heart: “If only I had the money to become a member and publish a book, or if only I could buy this book and keep it at home, read it once, twice, and again and again!” But I knew that this dream would remain just a dream, so how could it be fulfilled!

After my father’s death, the financial crisis became so severe that even paying fees was difficult. It was impossible to buy books for my hobby. A few rupees were sometimes given at the beginning of the session by a trust for deserving but helpless students to buy textbooks. He would buy major textbooks as “second-hand,” and the rest he would read from his classmates and make notes. In those days, after exams, students sold their old textbooks at half price, and the new students who were ${ }^{3}$ bewildered bought them. This way, things continued.

But I still remember how I bought my first literary book with my own money. That year, I passed intermediate. After selling my old textbooks, I went to a second-hand bookshop to buy B.A. textbooks. On that trip, even after buying textbooks, I had two rupees left. In front of the cinema hall, ‘Devdas’ was playing. New Theaters. There was a lot of talk about it. But my mother did not like watching movies at all. Children are ruined because of that. But the songs from the cinema hall would play outside. There was a song by Sahgal in it—‘Dukh Ke

1. Without attachment, even without desire 2. Suffering 3. Poor

Din Ab Bit Jaayen’ (Sorrowful days will pass). He would often hum it. Sometimes, when he hummed it, tears would come to his eyes. Why! One day, my mother heard it. My mother’s heart is, after all, my mother’s heart! One day she said, “Sorrowful days will pass, son, why are you making your heart so small? Take it in stride!” When she found out that it was a song from the movie ‘Devdas,’ my mother, who was strongly against cinema, said, “Why are you torturing your mind? Go and watch the picture. I’ll give you the money.” I told my mother that “I sold books and have two rupees left.” She took those two rupees and, with her permission, went to watch the movie. The first show was delayed, and there was a bookstore nearby. I started browsing. At the counter, there was a book—‘Devdas’. The author was Sharatchandra Chatterjee. The price was only one rupee. I picked up the book and flipped through it. The bookseller said, “You are a student. You sell your old books here. We are your old customers. I won’t take commission from you. I’ll give you the book for ten paise.” My heart skipped a beat. Who would believe that for half a rupee, you could watch a picture? I bought ‘Devdas’ for ten paise. I quickly returned home, and from the one rupee that was left, I gave six paise to my mother.

“Arey, how did you come back so soon? Didn’t you watch the movie?” my mother asked.

“No, Ma! I didn’t watch the movie; I bought this book to show you.”

Tears came to my mother’s eyes. Whether it was joy or sorrow, I don’t know. It was the first book of my own private library, bought with my own money.

Now, when I look back at the compilation of my books, which includes thousands of Hindi-English novels, plays, story collections, biographies, memoirs, history, art, archaeology ${ }^{1}$, and political ${ }^{2}$ books, how strongly ${ }^{3}$ do I remember that first book purchase! Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Zweig, Mopainsa, Chekhov,

1. Archaeology and the study and research of history 2. More than a thousand 3. Excess, strength

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Maykovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Stephen Spender, A.D. Pound, Eugene O’Neil, Jan Palach Satar, Alberry Camu, with Picasso, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Hepper, Husain, and Hindi writers like Kabir, Tulsidas, Sur, Rasakhan, Jayasi, Premchand, Pant, Nirala, Mahadevi, and who knows how many thinkers—how filled up I feel among these works!

The senior ${ }^{1}$ Marathi poet Vinda Karandikar said such a truth on that day! After my successful operation, they came to see me and said, “Bharati, these hundreds of great men who surround you in the form of books—it is their blessing that you survived. They gave you life again.” I silently bowed to Vinda, and to these great men too.

Thought Questions

1. Why did the surgeon hesitate to operate on the author?

2. What emotion was in the author’s heart behind staying in the “room full of books”?

3. What magazines used to come to the author’s home?

4. How did the author develop the habit of reading and collecting books?

5. Why was the author’s mother worried about her school studies?

6. How did the two English books received as a school prize open a new world for the author?

7. What inspiration did the author get from his father’s statement: “From today, this cupboard is your own books. This is your own library”?

8. Describe the incident of the author buying his first book in his own words.

9. Explain the meaning of the sentence: “Among these works, how filled up I feel myself.”

1. Great, worshipful